


Year 1: Reflection (Has It Only Been A Year?)

by NightmareAmpersand



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Humorous Violence, Introspection, Original Character(s), Possible Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 21:34:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5759638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightmareAmpersand/pseuds/NightmareAmpersand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taking some downtime between missions, Zephyr reflects on how the past year has affected her and her friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Year 1: Reflection (Has It Only Been A Year?)

**Author's Note:**

> Destiny is owned by Bungie, as is everything that they have put into the game. The personalities of the characters are the only things I claim in this story.

“That’s it, Guardian. Let’s see what you’ve got.” Cayde, the amusing and slightly snarky Exo Hunter Vanguard, finished inputting her current mission parameters into her ghost and let it hover back to its usual position over her left shoulder.

“Thanks, Cayde. I’ll be back before you know it.” Zephyr (Zef to her few friends) smiled at him charmingly, though she knew from experience that her charm was almost completely ignored, and turned with a dramatic flair of her new Nightstalker cloak to walk out of the hall of the Vanguards and allow the next person to bug Cayde for something or another. She honestly wondered how he managed to get anything done, although if you listened to Zavala and Ikora he never really did anything anyways. Skirting a small knot of Guardians going back and forth between Lord Shaxx and Arcite 99-40 (‘must be getting ready for their first time in the Crucible’ she thought) and giving Eris a friendly wave, she lightly went upstairs to the main plaza, the hub for the Guardians who called the Tower their home. As usual, the place was packed with Guardians tending to business in between missions, patrols, or competition.

“Would you like to see what Cayde has in store for you today?” Ghost was friendly and fairly cheerful, a drastic change from almost a full year of snarkiness and almost-apathy. She wasn’t sure which one she preferred, honestly.

“I suppose I’d better. Doesn’t help to go in blind.” Ghost moved from her shoulder to her now-upturned left hand and immediately let her enter the holographic, translucent function that allowed her to view digital representations of her current status, gear, and mission and quest outlines. “Let’s see…Cayde wants me to kill more shit with my new powers…scouting on Venus…kill Hive…what a pain,” she sighed, organizing her bounties for quick reference later. “Go ahead and bring up ID tags for the area, please.” Ghost flickered slightly, and now she could see virtual ID tags hovering above the heads of everyone else currently in range at the Tower. “Huh…they’re both here for once. Looks like Ignis is talking to Arach Jalaal…I wonder why…and Duke is at Holliday’s…must’ve gotten another blueprint.” With a couple of commands she sent messages to each of them to let them know she was here and would wait for them, then closed out the function on Ghost and let it hover above her shoulder again. 

“Do you need me right now?” Ghost asked her politely. “If not, I’m going to sleep for a while.”

“Go ahead…you’ll need the energy to open more doors for me.” She smiled as Ghost gave her its glare-of-death when she teased it, then disseminated into Light energy she could recall at any time. With Ghost gone, she went to one of her favorite spots to wait, a flat section halfway up the tree in front of Banshee-44’s shop. From that spot she could catch a glimpse of what normality might be like, were it not for the imminent threats that kept cropping up. First was the Heart of the Black Garden, fighting the Sol Progeny and the surprisingly primitive Vex that worshipped the Heart. Then the Vault of Glass had been unlocked on Venus, along with horrors like Atheon. She hadn’t helped with that, as she had been injured fighting against the Heart and was recovering, but both Duke and Ignis did. From what they told her, she was glad she opted out on that one.

Some time after that the deeply undercover Guardian Eris Morn arrived at the Tower to warn them that the Hive’s mythical hero/demigod, Crota, was having his soul resurrected. That led to an extensive network of caverns below the Hellmouth, deep inside the Moon. She’d joined in on that one with her friends and another fireteam Duke knew would help. All she really remembered of it was the very first part…a long, winding path that undulated under them, the caverns completely black. The Darkness pressed in on them, threatening to consume them, and eventually she only had the mental strength to narrow her focus on getting from lamp to lamp while the shrieking Thralls drove them forward faster than was safe. She took a month of rest after that one, amusing herself with the comparatively easy patrols in the Cosmodrome. 

Some time later Mara Sov, the Queen of the Awoken that lived in the Reef, called in the favor the three of them incurred when they got her help in locating the Black Garden. The House of Wolves, the Fallen she’d claimed were loyal to her, had turned on her and gone under a new leader, Skolas. With tactical support from Variks, a Fallen Scribe from the House of Judgement who remained loyal to Mara Sov, and Petra Venj, former Corsair turned into an Emissary as a form of semi-exile, she, Duke, and Ignis were all able to recapture Skolas so he could continue his captivity in the Prison of Elders.

There had only been a short time of peace after that. News that several battalions of Reef fighters and their flagship had been destroyed just off of the rings of Saturn was alarming. But when she learned that Mara Sov had been on the flagship, she became sad and enraged. She truly respected, even liked, the seemingly cold Queen. During a recent trip to Phobos, she and her team ran into creatures like they had never encountered before. The mission had been scrubbed and the data they retrieved was analyzed back at the Tower. Eris had only just told them that this was the work of Oryx, a god of the Hive and father to Crota. And he wasn’t happy about what happened to his son…

“There you are. I’ve been trying to raise you on the radio for a while now.” A female Awoken Voidwalker sat down next to her, startling her slightly. Ignis was one of her best friends and, somehow, could stealth better than even Cayde. She noticed that she’d picked up a full set of new armor, including some impressive exotic gauntlets, and acquired a shader that made her outfit uniformly black.

“Sorry…lost in thought.”

“About…”

“About how busy the past year has been…and the fact that it really has been only a year.” She, Ignis, and Duke had all been found and resurrected by their separate ghosts close to the same time. When she first arrived at the Tower in a beat-up ship and mismatched armor, she had been absolutely overwhelmed. Even in her previous life she had never been outgoing, never had a forceful personality. Her first few days had been spent up in this very tree when she was not in the Cosmodrome, scouting around and getting used to her new body and powers. One day Ignis jumped up into the tree beside her, completely uninvited, and she tried to ignore her so she wouldn’t engage in conversation. However, with her snarky, dry wit Ignis managed to make her laugh for the first time in countless ages. Since then, they sought out each other’s company as often as they could and frequently went on missions together.

“Yeah…a lot’s changed around here…and not all for the better.”

“I know…but it’s still home, right? Even if it isn’t a model community with really shitty mechanics sometimes,” she added as one such mechanic passed near them, a greasy-haired boy who leered at the two of them, obviously thinking he was sexy and completely ignoring the death glares the two female Guardians threw back at him. Those same mechanics had pissed them off for a while now, though they rarely discussed it since it usually led to ranting on one of their parts. Besides, there were worse things to complain about. Eager to change the subject and head off the inevitable rant, she hurried ahead with no break. “So, did you pass by Duke on your way up? Last I saw he was at Holliday’s. I’d really like to get going soon…”

“No…at least, he wasn’t there when I passed by her shop.”

“Okay…guess I’ll message him again.” She held her left hand out, palm up, in preparation to wake up Ghost so she could send the message. Before she could wake him up, though, a heavy weight collided with her back which caused her to lose balance and fall from the tree like a sack of potatoes. From behind the tree came raucous laughter coming from a tall, bulky human Striker with purple hair and dressed in purple armor head to toe.

“Damn it Duke, that hurt!” She caught the offending object as it floated down, a large purple ball that felt like it was full of helium but today contained a strange substance that made it look like there was a miniature galaxy inside. Though pretty and usually lightweight, it could be (and often was) thrown hard enough to be used offensively on her or thrown over the edge of the plaza to slowly descend to Earth below. She wondered just how many purple balls were piled up on the ground far below the Tower, and if the Fallen ever used them for their own games.

“You’re fine…you’ve taken worse falls than that.” His words were dismissive, but he still pulled her upright with a surprising amount of gentleness. She had met Duke shortly after she met Ignis, when she was doing a solo patrol in the Cosmodrome. She’d entered the area known as the Divide to find a Fallen Walker and a whole hoard of Fallen troops defending an excavation drill. Only one person was fighting against it…a Titan Striker wearing obnoxiously purple armor. To her amused disbelief she watched as he charged the Walker, leaping at the last second and coming down near its legs with a Fist of Havoc. Seconds later she watched his body fly the opposite way, his ghost marking the spot where the Walker used its’ self-defense move when his shielding was broken. Unable to leave without helping others, she ran forward, stabbing a Dreg in the face to help boost her stealth activation, and interfacing with his ghost to revive his body. Since then she’d done the same thing more times than she cared to count, thanks to his penchant for completely eschewing guns in favor of simply pummeling his enemies into submission. However, when he joined with her and Ignis, they became a scary force to be reckoned with, both on various missions and in the Crucible. 

“So, what did you have in mind?”

“Well, I’m up for anything,” said Ignis, landing neatly beside them. “Zeph?” She blinked, the thread of her thoughts broken, then thought quickly. After all, she was the one who reached out to them.

“Hmm…Cayde recently passed along some info to me. Apparently he has a stealth drive hidden in his cache in the Devil’s Tower. It’s east of Skywatch, but it looks like we can only access it through the reservoir that’s at the back of the Devil’s Lair.” 

“Damn…we’re gonna have to fight that stupid Walker and Sekrion again?” Duke whined.

“Really? When was the last time they gave us any problems?” Zeph countered.

“The last time the Vanguards imposed Void Burn on one of their crazy training exercises,” Ignis replied. She was right…they’d been wiped out in one single Pulse Blast. They’d been revived in the Tower a day later to the Vanguards telling them they’d failed the mission completely. They promptly kicked Sekrion’s (non-existent) ass shortly after, though.

“Well, let’s go! You’re leading this little party, Zeph,” Duke reminded her with a gentle cuff to her shoulder.

“Oh…right.” She summoned Ghost and, about seven seconds later, they were in their respective ships and flying for the Cosmodrome.

**Author's Note:**

> Zephyr, Ignis, and Duke are based on the mains that me and my two closest friends run in Destiny, so obviously I've lifted a lot of our respective personalities for this fiction. In case the timing or participation seems weird, I tend to dilate the time to accomplish certain things since I don't realistically see all three storylines occurring within the week that they are all released (reality vs. game mechanics...gotta love it). I also don't believe that one person and/or fireteam is going to take care of everything, so naturally these characters haven't participated in every mission, strike, and raid. Replaying levels and strikes could always fall under 'training exercises'. I do as much research as I can and try to get all the people, events, and places correct to the game, but I know I'm not perfect. Please forgive any discrepancies as 'artistic license'.


End file.
